Chatting with our mentor and friend, Michelle Place. As Director or the Tulsa Historical Society, Michelle Place serves as a convergence point for the city. She works to illuminate the fullness of Tulsa’s vibrant history, including its darker, racist past, which many Tulsans, both black and white, have sought to forget.

Michelle was the first person we met on our 50-state journey. Her unique role as a preservationist of stories, including that of Tulsa’s Black Wall Street and the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, has allowed her to bring these stories to light for many, including us.

Michelle shares how her unconventional southern upbringing shaped her to do the work she is doing today, and fills in our listeners on some of the lesser-known impacts of policies like integration. We discuss Michelle’s “tough love” as we recap with her our introduction to phrases like “the winners write the history” and “white privilege”.

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